But then he got on the mat as a sophomore at New Bern High School and turned into a willing convert to the sport that’s more about guts than glory.

Even then, however, he expected football, along with teaching, to be his life’s work.

After playing defensive tackle for four years at Methodist University, Spiece hoped to one day be a head football coach in high school.

Until he coached his first state wrestling champion at Douglas Byrd.

Forget football. It was wrestling all the way for Spiece, who while having been on the job since March officially began his tenure as Swansboro’s wrestling coach Wednesday as practice began in the area and across the state for high school winter sports.

“In 2008 I thought I was going to go down the road and try to be a head football coach,” said Spiece, who spent five years as Byrd’s head wrestling coach before taking a teaching job at Swansboro two years ago. “We were fortunate we made the state finals in football that year.”

Byrd didn’t win the state football title, but Spiece did coach his first wrestling state champion.

“So it was a great year,” he said. “There was something about that one-on-one competition, that one kid that you coached all the way through. The thrill was just bigger for me with that. That was when I said I want to be a wrestling coach, that’s what I want to do.”

As he thought back about that time following a two-hour workout in the smelly, humid auxiliary gym at Swansboro on Wednesday, Spiece tried to explain why the sport had pinned him.

“I think it had something to do with the one-on-one nature of it. The fact if I work hard I have the opportunity to go win a state championship on my own. There’s something that happens between the coaches and the wrestlers as they help push them to that point, I can’t put that in words, but it’s special,” he said.

“And I think it’s addictive. The big thing is … the nature of the sport, having to make weight, the workouts that you do would make a billy goat puke, the courage that it takes to step out there one on one.

“My 10th grade year I became a better football player after I started wrestling. … I don’t know how I was with one-on-one competition before that, maybe a little shy. But all of sudden you’re out there one-on-one and the courage that it takes, you’re either going to develop the courage or quit.”

Spiece, 35, who teaches U.S. history and AP government, was a good enough football player at New Bern High to play at Methodist, which had no wrestling team. But he remained a fan of the sport, which was strong in the high schools in Fayetteville.

Page 2 of 3 - After graduating from Methodist, Spiece was an assistant football coach and head wrestling coach at Byrd, where he coached two state wrestling champions and five others who placed in the state championships.

But he wanted to get closer to home. He learned of a teaching opening at Swansboro, which he ultimately landed, bringing him back closer to the area where all of his family lives. Last year, he worked as an assistant for wrestling coach Ben Reichert.

Reichert, a single parent, opted not to return as head coach this year, opening the door for Spiece to take over a program that includes several standout wrestlers, including Bryan Mol (106 pounds) and Tyler Henson (113), who both made the state championships in 2012.

The Pirates open the season Nov. 21 with a tri-meet at Pamlico.

Ask Spiece what his coaching philosophy is and he’ll talk about focusing on all his wrestlers, trying to make each and every one as good as he (or she) can be. He also hopes to ultimately “develop” two wrestlers at each of the 14 weight classes.

“Now this is our first year,” he said. “That may be a lofty goal. But that’s what we’re pushing towards and as time goes by hopefully we’ll be able to make that happen. We’ve got a lot of kids in here (at the opening day of practice). A lot of them fall in the same weight class, so that makes it tough.”

Along with developing his wrestlers as athletes, Spiece said he’ll also focus on academics. He said his wrestlers will have a mandatory 75-minute study hall Monday through Friday. He also said he’ll check his wrestlers’ grades “at least once a week.”

“Our team goal is to have a 3.3 GPA, no less,” he said.

Whether on the mat or in the classroom — or later in college or at a job — Spiece said he and his staff’s goal is to “stress hard work, sacrifice and dedication.”

“I think those are life skills,” he said. “No matter how good they are on the mat, if we can get those kids thinking along those terms, they’re going to be successful with whatever they want to do.”

What they want to do right now is to win on the mat in a sport that Spiece said is simply “special” to him and those who love it.

“It’s brutal,” Spiece said. “But it appealed to me because of how tough it is. I have so much respect and admiration for these kids that stick it out and do it. This probably hits to the heart of my thinking on it.”